by K. B. Wagers
The voice in my head was silent and I sighed, wiping my face as I went back into my rooms. “Alba, will you call Judge Claremont—”
“It’s already done, Majesty.” She reached out with a smile and brushed away a tear that was still clinging to my cheek.
“I don’t know what I’d do without you.” I touched her elbow. “I’m off to lunch with Hao and Dailun. I’ll see you when I get back.”
Alba smiled. “Have a nice time, Your Majesty.”
A warm summer breeze blew through Garuda Square and in through the open storefront of the café, carrying with it scents of candy, covan smoke, and sounds of children playing in the fountain.
The square had recovered from the Pratimas blast and remarkably escaped damage from the battles in the capital during Wilson’s coup. From my seat I could see the undisturbed ring of flowers someone laid out frequently for the victims of the explosion.
I loved these stolen quiet moments. Eating in my rooms wasn’t the same, and nearly every meal out was with someone about imperial business. But the last few weeks I’d managed to sneak away to the square and sit in silence while I ate and caught up on work. It didn’t matter that I was surrounded by BodyGuards, the café had been cleared out, and only Dailun sat by my side.
He was reading something on his zhù, his eyes flicking back and forth across the pages loaded into his smati only he could see.
I’d waved Hao off a few minutes before, his restless foot-tapping having finally gotten on my nerves, and I was scrolling through the day’s news when a hand closed around my wrist.
“Empress Hailimi, could I have a moment?”
I looked up into the warm brown eyes of Aiz Cevalla as the sound of Emmory’s shouted warning went to war with the whining sound of Hessian 45s powering up.
“Let. Her. Go.”
Aiz’s eyes flicked away from me for just a second and a smile curved his mouth. “You and I both know, Ekam, that you will not shoot me. You know my death will kill your empress as surely as if you’d shot her yourself. I do not want to hurt anyone, I only want to talk, and I believe that is why Her Majesty commed me in the first place.” He was speaking in Galactic Standard, his words heavily accented but understandable.
“You could have commed back.” I didn’t know why the smart comment was the first thing out of my mouth with a Shen’s hand on my skin.
Aiz’s grin flashed, transforming his stern face into something more boyishly handsome. “I like face-to-face meetings, and I confess, the chance to see the legendary gunrunner empress in person was enough to justify the risk.”
“Have a seat. We’ll talk.” I gestured at the empty one next to Dailun. “I’ll even give you my word you won’t be harmed and can walk back out of here once we’re done.”
“Not here, it’s a bit distracting with guns. You’ll come with me alone. You need to hear what I have to say. Tell your people to stand down. I promise you won’t be hurt.”
“You’re not going anywhere with her.” Emmory’s snarl was enough to scare me, but Aiz didn’t even flinch at the menace.
“Ekam, this is a clear choice—you let us go or you kill both of us. There are no other options. I am not particularly interested in dying today, but I will if I have to. The Shen will continue without me for a time because they must, and then I will return. However, do you think Indrana can survive the loss of their star so soon after that ugly civil war?”
Choices. We were back to choices and trusting when I had no reason to do so. If Aiz had wanted me dead it would already be done. “Emmory.” I reached my free hand out and laid it on my Ekam’s forearm. “Tell everyone to stand down. I’ll go with him.”
Emmory didn’t look at me and his gun didn’t waver.
“Ekam, that was an order. As is this: If he kills me, you tell Alice to take the full might of Indrana and help the Farians wipe the Shen from the fabric of the universe.” I looked back at Aiz. “There is nowhere you can run, nowhere you can hide, no one who will protect your people if you harm me, Aiz Cevalla.”
“Your terms are agreeable.” Aiz nodded. “I want to talk, nothing more. What say you, Ekam? Are you going to kill us all, or trust me?”
Something about Aiz’s tone made me realize he meant the entirety of the galaxy would suffer if we died, and I tightened my fingers on Emmory’s arm just a fraction.
“I trust the empress,” Emmory replied, holstering his gun. “All teams stand down. Clear the exits.”
I squeezed his forearm as I got to my feet, Aiz’s hand still wrapped around my right wrist. A thousand possibilities raged through my head. Was I fast enough to use this movement as a distraction and get free before he grabbed me again and killed me?
My bet was a hundred to one, which wasn’t anywhere close to odds I liked. Indrana could survive without me. I wasn’t so arrogant to think that I was somehow the beginning and the ending of this empire. But at what cost? Would my death reignite the war, giving those planets who’d defected to Wilson’s side an excuse to break with the empire for good? The thought of Alice trying to fight another war instead of focusing on the empire and the future we were creating kept me from wrenching my wrist free of Aiz’s grip even before Dailun spoke up.
“Jiejie, less violence, not more.”
I nodded at him, forcing a smile, and then looked at Aiz with a raised eyebrow.
“This way, Empress.” The Shen led me toward the back of the café, into the now-empty kitchen. I spotted the knife, tossed hastily to the side as the cook had fled. Aiz’s attention was fixed on the door at the back of the kitchen, and I knew I’d have one chance.
Snagging the knife off the counter on our way by, I tossed a silent blessing Stasia’s way for the sari I was wearing as I hid it beneath the deep green fabric. Aiz shouldered through the back door out into the shadowed alley.
The electric shock of his hand on my face took me by surprise and I nearly dropped my weapon. “Bugger me!”
15
Sorry.” Aiz’s grin, however, was unrepentant. “You’ll find your smati useless for a little while, Majesty. It is not permanent, though.”
“You’d better hope Emmory doesn’t think you just killed me.”
“A risk worth taking. This way.” He led me down the alley and through another door into an empty building.
My stomach clenched, and I used all my willpower to not balk as we went down a set of stairs into the basement and then into a tunnel. The tunnel was old but showed signs of recent use, and as we took turn after turn, I realized I was about to be thoroughly lost beneath the city.
“You are testing my patience, Mr. Cevalla.” I struggled to keep the quavering of my voice to a minimum but couldn’t hide the way my feet automatically dug in to keep me from going deeper into the ground.
“You do well with that imperial voice. It’s hard to believe you were a gunrunner for twenty years.” His voice carried enough disdain in the word gunrunner to distract me from my panic.
“Just a little farther, Empress, and I promise the room is wide enough to keep your claustrophobia at bay.” He smiled at me over his shoulder. “I hope you’ll forgive me for this discomfort; it seemed safer to have you slightly off balance.”
I tightened my grip on the knife. “You know an awful lot about me.”
“I am a quick study when the occasion calls for it, and you are something of a celebrity. We have watched every documentary about you, and the live feed of your death.” Aiz ducked through a dark opening on his left, practically dragging me through while my brain screamed in protest.
We entered a brightly lit room scattered with desks and couches coated in dust. A woman stood by one of the couches, and she turned as we entered. Aiz released me, backing away with his hands up and a smile peeking through his dark beard.
“Your Majesty, may I present my sister. Mia Cevalla.”
Mia dipped her head, brown hair swinging forward to hide her face. She was even more distracting in person, and I stepped hard on the desire su
ddenly crowding out my panic. “Star of Indrana, it is a great honor to be in your presence.” Her Indranan was halting and heavily accented.
“Your brother kidnapped me and threatened me, so it’s hard to say the same,” I replied. “Where are we?”
“Old Upjas hideout,” Aiz replied. “Very handy. First, before you take off back the way we came, you’ll get lost and none of us want that. Just listen to what we have to say, and I’ll give you a map out of here and turn your smati back on so your people can find you.”
“Aiz,” Mia sighed. “Did you really threaten her?”
He shrugged. “I was mostly stating a fact. If her Ekam had shot me, it would have killed her.”
I leaned against the closest desk, laying the knife down on the dusty surface. “You’ve got five minutes. Start talking. If I don’t like what you have to say, I’m going to bury this in at least one of your throats.”
Some of the smug certainty drained from his face, and I allowed myself a smile as his eyes flickered to the knife. “Kitchen?”
I nodded once.
“I didn’t even hear you grab it,” he murmured to himself with a smile. “I promised myself I wouldn’t underestimate you, but it appears I have already done so.” He dipped his head. “Why didn’t you just stab me in the back?”
“Because I actually want to hear what you have to say, but I don’t trust you. Not after that stunt.” Crossing my arms over my chest and trying to ignore the hammering of my heart or the way the walls were pressing down on me, I stared him down and then looked at Mia. “A com link would have been a whole lot less fuss and wouldn’t have earned Aiz the enmity of my BodyGuards or my annoyance. How did he get past them into the café?”
“If I’ve only got five minutes I’d rather not waste it.” Mia’s teeth flashed white against her tan skin as she smiled. “You are in danger, Empress. The Farians are trying to involve not only you but your empire in a war they cannot hope to win.”
“I already told them no.”
“They will not listen.” Mia shook her head. “They will not stop. They will keep asking, and if you keep refusing they will find a way to make you involve yourself.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Are you suggesting the Farians would actually attack us?”
“They are more ruthless than you can imagine, but they will not attack you outright. They will kill your friends, your heir, the fetus that carries the hopes of Indrana. They can and will make it look as though we were responsible. The Farians do not care about humans beyond what you can give them,” Aiz said.
“And what is that, exactly?”
“A place for them to dispose of the energy they hoard because their gods refuse to let them use it on themselves.”
That was not the answer I was expecting, and I stared at the pair for a long moment as my brain scrambled to wrap itself around the concept. The Farians had always said that helping humans was a pilgrimage to keep the gods’ fire from burning them up inside.
The best lie is always at least a partial truth, Portis whispered in my head. “You stole their ships, burned down their colonies,” I said.
Mia smiled, and the gray of her eyes warmed into a smoky haze. “We did steal those ships, but it was not the Shen who burned down those Farian colonies.”
“Excuse me?” I dropped my hands, standing up straight from the desk. “Do you have proof?”
“I could provide all the proof in the universe, and it would still be my word versus the Farians, and because they have spent millennia on a disinformation campaign against my people, no one would believe me.” The bitterness was clear on her face. “The victor writes the history, as you well know, Majesty.”
“What do you want from me?”
“Join us. Help us win this fight. It is the only way the rest of the galaxy is safe.” Mia held her hands out and took a step toward me, stopping when I automatically shifted back against the desk and grabbed for the knife. “Abdicate your throne to the capable hands of your heir. We will keep Indrana safe from the Farians.”
“You’re asking me to violate an alliance that is centuries old without any proof or justification beyond your word. I have zero reason to do that.”
“The winds have shifted in this war, Majesty; you and I both know it. It will continue to escalate and it may take us another thousand years, but we will win.” Mia’s smile was soft, but I recognized the plasteel beneath the surface of it. “I don’t want to fight you, I don’t want to fight Indrana, but I will if I have to and I will lay waste to everything you hold dear. It would be better for everyone if you left now.”
The passion in her words was true; whatever else was going on, Mia believed what she was saying. People with conviction and a cause were predictable, but they were dangerous. They’d give anything, do anything, sacrifice themselves and anyone else on the altar of their mission.
A year ago I might have jumped at the chance, but just like the Farians, the Shen had misjudged me. They thought the gunrunner was still staring longingly at the black just waiting for a chance to escape.
I wasn’t. I was the Empress of Indrana and would be until my dying breath. “You probably shouldn’t have picked a fight with the Farians, then,” I said baring my teeth in a smile of my own. “We are Faria’s allies. At some point I will have no choice but to help them, and I promise you Indrana will make you pay dearly if you come after us.”
“By the time they are willing to beg for or try to force your empire’s help, it will be too late.” Aiz’s smile had no warmth to it, and it chilled me to the bone. “For the good of the galaxy, join us.”
“I can’t,” I whispered. “None of you seem to understand I’m not a gunrunner anymore. I am the Empress of Indrana, and Indrana doesn’t want to be involved in your war. We are done with war. It is my responsibility to keep us out of this. I won’t help you. I won’t help them.”
Mia held up a hand before her brother could reply. “I’m sorry to hear that. We had hoped to avoid this, but it seems the path is to be a violent one.” She sighed and then smiled, and my gut churned with the way the word violent rolled off her tongue. “But such is life, we will go on. I appreciate your willingness to at least listen.”
I tightened my hand on the knife handle, my panic over the closed-in space beaten back; as the adrenaline of an impending fight flooded me, I studied the pair. If they were smart they would attack me together. One of them would be able to get their hands on my exposed skin and kill me. The best I could hope for was to take one of them with me.
Instead, Aiz nodded, then folded his hands together and bowed. “Thank you for listening, Empress. We have kept you long enough. If you’ll permit me to reactivate your smati, I’ll show you the way out.”
“You’re an idiot if you think I’m just going to let you walk up and kill me.”
They both froze. The shock was written clear across their faces and I tightened my grip on the knife until my fingers hurt.
“Your Majesty, I promised your—I promised I would not hurt you. I am no liar.” Aiz held his hands up, but I shook my head.
“If you’re telling the truth, just go. I’ll find my own way out.”
“You won’t, and your BodyGuards won’t be able to find you either.” Mia shoved her hands into the pockets of her pants and crossed the room to me, ignoring her brother’s protest when I brought the knife up between us. “I don’t wish us to part as enemies, and leaving you down here would do just that.” She leaned in, the blade at her throat, and for a second we stared at each other.
“Mia.” Aiz’s voice was little more than a gust of air, and I watched his sister smile.
“You’ll have time to kill me if he does anything more than turn your smati back on,” she said. “Neither of us wants to die, Majesty, so trust me this once.” She pulled one hand free and held out a data chip to me. “Information and a way for you to contact us when you change your mind.”
“I won’t,” I said, but I held the knife steady against her throa
t as I pulled the chip from her fingers without touching her.
Aiz approached us. He was pale under his dark beard, and there was a surprising tremble to his fingers as he reached out to me.
He brushed fingers along my jaw, pulling away in a fluid movement and knocking my knife hand away from Mia’s throat. My recoil was part automatic, part from the jolt of electricity that lanced through me at the contact. My head filled with the rapid-fire orders on the com link as my smati came back online.
“… sector by sector sweep. Gita reports they pursued underground. I want all exits in a ten-block radius covered by Marines.”
“Ekam, I have the empress’s signal!”
Aiz winked, bravado back now that he was firmly between me and his sister. “The map is on the walls, just follow the marks to the surface.” He turned his back on me and ushered Mia through the door.
I followed them, but the blackness of the tunnel and the sound of water running slammed into me with a vicious fury, bringing with it images of water rising over my chest in the cold tomb of Wilson’s coffin. I stumbled away from the doorway with a sob, back to the relative safety of the wide room and bright light.
“Hail, can you hear me?” Emmory’s voice was in my ear, even over the com link bringing with it enough reassurance that I could piece together some sanity.
“I’m in an old Upjas hideout. Aiz and Mia are gone. He said there’s a way out. A map on the walls, but it’s dark. I’m sorry. There’s water—I can’t—”
“We’re headed for you now. It’s all right, Majesty, I’ll be right there.”
The knife clattered against the stone floor and I followed it to the ground, both arms wrapped around my waist, shaking.
“Hail!” It was Hao, not Emmory, who came through the door minutes later. “Are you hurt?” He cupped my face in his hands and then wrapped his arms around me. “Emmory, I found her. You got a lock? Okay, we’ll meet you there.”
“There’s a map,” I whispered. “I couldn’t—there was water, in the dark.” I knew it wasn’t there, but I could see the inside of the box, the light shining in my eyes. I squeezed them shut and fisted my hands in Hao’s shirtfront.
